


Engraved

by standbygo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 13:39:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9551408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: A little fix-it for Series 4, The Final Problem. Takes place immediately after Sherlock destroys the coffin.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not redistribute my fanfiction on other archives or sites without my express permission. Thank you.

Sherlock is both keyed up and exhausted, the two emotions mixing like oil and water in his veins – no, like magnesium and carbon dioxide, creating sparks and black smoke everywhere. His hands still shake from adrenaline, and they hurt.

From his shuttered view of the floor between his feet, he sees John’s shoes. Cleaned but not highly polished; still spotted with sea salt from the boat; comfortable but not fashionable – John dressed prepared for activity, for a case unlike any other. _Well, that turned out to be true_ , Sherlock thinks dully.

Light glints off the gun in John’s hand, off the ring he still wears.

John’s voice is soft and measured and yet still tense. “I know this is difficult, and I know you’re being tortured. But you have got to keep it together.”

 _I know I know I know_ , Sherlock’s brain chants. And, behind that, the child-voice in his hind-brain saying, _I want to go home_.

But he can’t go home. They’re trapped here. And home is – he can’t go home.

“Soldiers,” he says to John.

“Soldiers,” John replies.

Sherlock allows himself to look up at John. “John. If we ever get out of here-”

“When.”

John’s eyes are fixed on the wall behind Sherlock, his tone firm.

“What?”

“When. When we get out of here.”

Sherlock feels his lungs take in air, finally.

“Yes. When. Thank you. When we get out of here. Will you help me. Talk to Molly. Explain.”

John’s eyes meet his. “Yes. Of course.”

“It’s not fair.”

“No.”

“To her or to – it’s not fair.”

John is silent, and Sherlock cannot tell at all what he is thinking.

“All right. We’ll talk to her. Together.” John extends his hand.

Sherlock puts his hand into John’s but does not yet pull on it to stand. “John.” He has to say this, but he is aware of every camera, in the room, in this prison. “We’ll talk too. All right?”

John’s lips thin as they press together, and he nods, once, crisply.

Sherlock stands, but does not release John’s hand for a moment. “Do you understand, John?” he says.

John blinks, then says, “Yes. We’ll talk.”

“Hold on to that for me, will you?”

“All right.”

Sherlock releases John’s hand, straightens his back, and walks towards Mycroft, towards the next room. From the corner of his eye, he sees John as he passes between the rooms, between the cameras. Sees him tuck something small into his breast pocket.

**

The water is rising, rising up his chest and will be above his head soon, and he is going to die here, die alone and cold and in the dark, die chained like a dog, die alone and –

Something hits him in the face, more solid than water but not hard like the rock walls around him. Something rough like –

“John! John!”

Rope.

That’s Sherlock’s voice, and it’s real, not in his earpiece but up and above and away from the water, at the end of the rope. John grabs the rope, barely feeling the rough hemp between his shaking frozen hands, and pulls up, toward the moon, toward Sherlock, but something yanks him back.

“Sherlock, I can’t-”

“Move, John, I’m coming down.”

 _No no no, don’t come down, stay up where you are safe_ , John thinks, but before his brain can translate this down to words in his mouth, Sherlock is there, lowering himself down the rope hand over hand, and then splashing next to him. The moonlight glints off his white shirt, and illuminates the well.

“Are you all right, John?”

“Yeah,” John says, air chattering the word out.

“I’m going to unlock the chain, and then we’re getting out. Do you understand, John?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Sherlock pulls out his lock picking kit, selects the two largest tools, and shoves the rest into John’s shaking hands. “Hold that,” he says, and takes a huge gulp of air before ducking down into the water.

John fights his urge to reach down and pull Sherlock back out of the dark and cold. Seconds tick by and John begins to understand a new facet of fear, when Sherlock resurfaces with a whoosh.

“Christ that’s cold,” he says, and goes down again.

He’s down less time this time, but to John it feels like his whole life lived over again. Sherlock rockets out of the water at the same time that John can feel the weight lifted from his foot.

“Got it,” Sherlock says. “Can you climb? The rope?”

“You go,” John says.

Sherlock fixes him with a fierce stare. “John Watson, if you think I’m leaving you behind in here, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought,” he says. He grabs the rope and ties a loop in the bottom of it. John sees that Sherlock’s hands are trembling, that the tips of his fingers are blue. John can’t feel his own fingers, hasn’t for a while now.

Sherlock slips his foot into the loop, tests its strength with his weight. “Okay, come on now, John,” he says. He pushes John’s foot into the loop, on top of his own foot, and pulls John in close to him. “Greg!” he shouts up, and the word bounces around the walls of the well. “Got him! Pull!”

Immediately John feels the rope jerk, and it rises, inch by inch. The moment John’s skin leaves the water and feels air again, he begins to shiver. He grips onto Sherlock’s clothes with his hands like claws.

Years and years later, John feels several pairs of hands on him, pulling him over the edge of the well and onto the grass. Deep inside he knows he is safe now, but he can’t release his hold on Sherlock, and Sherlock doesn’t let go either. He feels the warm scratchy weight of a blanket being draped around them both.

After a long time, the shaking dies down into small tremours, and he knows the risk of hypothermia has passed. He feels his brain coming back online, his hind brain releasing control of his spine.  He realizes that his face is tucked into Sherlock’s neck, and Sherlock is leaning his cheek on the top of John’s head.

“All right?” Sherlock says. His tone is gentle in a way that John would have thought impossible even six months ago.

“Yeah,” John says, but even as he does he feels a new panic rise up.

“Oh God,” John says. He pulls away, and the blanket slides off his shoulders. He begins to pat his pockets, up and down the sides of his body.

“What is it, John?”

“Where is it? Did she take it? Is it – oh God, did it fall out, is in the well, I need-”

But then his fingers find it, the small rectangle, its sharp corners incongruous in his wet pocket.  He pulls it out, the damp flannel of his shirt dragging on it. He wants to say so much, but his brain is still slow, waterlogged. But he has to -             

He presses it into Sherlock’s hand.

“I understand, okay? Sherlock? I understand. And – yes. Me too. Okay? You understand?”

Sherlock looks down at the tiny piece of brass in his hand. The moon reflects in the metal, shines between the letters engraved in it. ‘I LOVE YOU’ and the moon.

“Okay,” he says, and pulls the blanket back over John’s shoulders. John puts his head back down on Sherlock’s shoulder, calms again. Sherlock’s arm curves around him. “Okay.”

“Good,” John says, and he closes his eyes and rests against Sherlock.

 

 

_End_

 

 

 

 


End file.
